Because he wanted to ensure he won game 6 and he knows Chapman can pitch another 2-3 innings in game 7 if needed.

And it nearly blew up in his face. Look, I'm not the guy that immediately questions every decision a manager makes, especially in hindsight. But I questioned from the jump on even having Chapman warm up Tuesday night, let alone pitch. The guys been a one inning pitcher for years, and now you want to use him 2-3 innings, possibly in back to back days.
But the other thought was where was the rest of the Cubs bullpen? Maddon completely abandoned the rest of the bullpen in games 6-7. Edwards and Montgomery only pitched because they went extra innings.

And it nearly blew up in his face. Look, I'm not the guy that immediately questions every decision a manager makes, especially in hindsight. But I questioned from the jump on even having Chapman warm up Tuesday night, let alone pitch. The guys been a one inning pitcher for years, and now you want to use him 2-3 innings, possibly in back to back days.
But the other thought was where was the rest of the Cubs bullpen? Maddon completely abandoned the rest of the bullpen in games 6-7. Edwards and Montgomery only pitched because they went extra innings.

You ask your top talent to do more in these situations; happens every Fall. If Lester gets the called strike in the 8th, Chapman comes in to finish the 9th and you have nothing to b!tch about.

Yet Maddon is 1 for 2 in winning World Championships and you make dumb comments on yappi. Life isn't fair, huh?

Well, the John Lamb experiment is over. The Reds dealt Lamb to the Rays for cash. Lamb just underwent back surgery and is not expected to be ready for the start of the '17 season.
Lamb, along with Brandon Finnigan and Cody Reed, came to the Reds in the Johnny Cueto trade in '15.

The Reds seemingly have plenty of pitching, obviously the Rays must have not had anything the Reds valued much and Lamb is semi-expendable.

Lamb seemed to be a tweener as either a starter or reliever. Obviously once you figure out a guy can't start, then he becomes a bullpen guy. Lamb didn't have a big time fastball, seemed to be more of a location change speed guy.

I have said that for years. COaching HS aged kids I made a very unconventional move in a tournament game....lose your season is over. Last inning, tying run at first. 2 outs. I intentionally walked the batter which put the tying run at second, and winning run at 1st.

Did so simply as a gut play as I was more worried of that hitter (whom I walked all 5 times that game) would get a double, triple or HR than the next guy getting a single to tie it.

I have said that for years. COaching HS aged kids I made a very unconventional move in a tournament game....lose your season is over. Last inning, tying run at first. 2 outs. I intentionally walked the batter which put the tying run at second, and winning run at 1st.

Did so simply as a gut play as I was more worried of that hitter (whom I walked all 5 times that game) would get a double, triple or HR than the next guy getting a single to tie it.

Playing the odds, you had more faith in the next guy not getting a single than the previous batter hitting a double or more.

Risky...considering it is HS>...and an error coulda allowed the tying run as well

But also at the high school level, if you have a really, really good player, sometimes it's the best stragety. The only thing comparable at the major league level was Bonds when teams were intentionally walking him with the bases loaded or guys on base. Simply didn't want to chance him going yard.

Ok, I know this is the 2017 thread, but I want to go back to '16 for just a moment and get on my soapbox...

The NL MVP will be announced soon, and the "experts" have dubbed the Nats Daniel Murphy, Cubs Kris Bryant and Dodger Corey Segar as the likely top candidates for the award. My question is...where is Joey Votto???

Baseball, unlike the other sports, is the game that one player has the least control over the success of the team, so team success can count some, but should not be overwhelming in the voting. Offensively, the Reds in 2016 had 6,094 plate appearances as a team. Joey Votto had 677. So Votto had a just a tick over 11% of the teams at bats for the season. My point is one player in baseball has little control over the teams success.

So, when you take Votto's numbers vs. the 3 above, very comparable. Obviously Bryant has more home runs, but also more strikeouts and the lowest batting average of the 3. Interesting, Murphy had only 35 walks to Votto's 108 for the season.

This is from Jaime Ramsey's blog "Better off Red" with a few notes on Votto's 2016 season...

A FEW NOTES ON JOEY VOTTO’S FANTASTIC 2016 SEASON
On Sunday afternoon, the Reds season came to an end with a 7-4 loss to the Cubs. However, Joey Votto’s 2016 performance will continue to reverberate well into the offseason and beyond. Votto finished the year with a .326 batting average, .434 on-base percentage (1st in NL), .550 slugging percentage, .985 OPS, 29 HR and 97 RBI in 158 games. All of this came after Joey was slashing .213 avg/.330 obp/.404 slg at the beginning of June.

Although it was a long season for Reds fans, we here at Better Off Red want to help remind folks just how incredible Votto’s season happened to be with a few of the following tid bits:

Joey became just the second Reds player to ever produce a .320 batting average and a .430 on-base percentage in a season. Votto joins Joe Morgan who did it in 1975 & 1976.
Joey in the second half of the season batted .408 with a .490 on-base percentage and a .668 slugging percentage. He’s the first player to hit .400 over the second half of the season since Ichiro Suzuki batted .429 in 2004.
Joey led all Major Leaguers in several second half categories, including batting average (.408), OBP (.490), SLG (.668), OPS (1.158), hits (107) and times on base (154).
Overall in 2016, Joey reached base safely 294 times. To put that into perspective, in 1962, Frank Robinson reached safely 295 times. Robinson led the NL that season with a .421OBP, .624SLG and a 1.045OPS. Joey holds the Reds franchise record for times on base during a season with 319 in 2015. He’s been on base at least 275 times in 5 of his 10 seasons. Only Pete Rose (9 times) has been as prolific.
Joey is just the fourth Reds player in modern history and the first since 1925 to collect 181 or more hits in 556 or fewer at-bats. The last Red to do it was Edd Roush (1925 & 1923), followed by Hal Chase (1916) and Sam Crawford (1902).
Joey made exactly 400 outs in 677 plate appearances. It’s just the 53rd time since 1901 that a player with that many plate appearances made as few amount of outs. Of those 53 times, 36 have been by Hall of Famers. Joey is the first player to do it in back-to-back seasons since Hank Greenberg in 1937 and 1938. He’s the only Red ever to do it.

Yeah, and no matter how historic your second half is, you shouldn't win an MVP in a season where you were terrible for over half of it. I'd definitely give him the second half of the season MVP though, hands down.

14Red - thanks I enjoyed that blog and the stats compared to history. good stuff.

I agree that an MVP cannot be given based on half a season, and also that if the full season numbers matched the back half, he wins MVP hands down. But at the end of the day .326, 29 HR, less than 100 RBI are not MVP numbers, especially on a bad team.

Remember, the "V" in MVP stands for "Valuable". How valuable can a guy be if his team is the worst in the league? If they rename MVP to "Most Outstanding Player", or "Statistically Impressive Player" then we can remove winning from the decision...

14Red - thanks I enjoyed that blog and the stats compared to history. good stuff.

I agree that an MVP cannot be given based on half a season, and also that if the full season numbers matched the back half, he wins MVP hands down. But at the end of the day .326, 29 HR, less than 100 RBI are not MVP numbers, especially on a bad team.

Remember, the "V" in MVP stands for "Valuable". How valuable can a guy be if his team is the worst in the league? If they rename MVP to "Most Outstanding Player", or "Statistically Impressive Player" then we can remove winning from the decision...

SIP would work better than MOP - unless the player has long hair. None of that these days, right?

Ok, I'll say that while he may not be THE MVP, he certainly should be in the argument. He had a great season, and I think in a sport like baseball, "valuable" is a tough term to determine. Today's version of "value" is different than it was 50 years ago. Didn't Ernie Banks win the MVP with the Cubs one year when they were bad? Andrew Dawson? (Hmm...two Cubs?) Anyway, one of my points is can you automatically eliminate 75% of the players in the league because their teams didn't win enough games?

Those two are major exceptions to the rule. Banks was the best player in MLB, both offense and defense, both those years. And Andre (not Andrew) Dawson was the best (or 1a with McGuire 1b) power ball hitter and an ace in the field. If the best you can come up with is the best player in the league winning it 60 years ago and and a great two way player winning it 30 years ago, that right there should end your argument.

The answer is yes, you can eliminate 75% of the league. Look at Trout last year. He statistically had a better year than Donaldson as a batter is a better fielder than Donaldson too. But Donaldson's team won 93 games and was 1st in their division. The Angles won 85 and were third.

Those two are major exceptions to the rule. Banks was the best player in MLB, both offense and defense, both those years. And Andre (not Andrew) Dawson was the best (or 1a with McGuire 1b) power ball hitter and an ace in the field. If the best you can come up with is the best player in the league winning it 60 years ago and and a great two way player winning it 30 years ago, that right there should end your argument.

The answer is yes, you can eliminate 75% of the league. Look at Trout last year. He statistically had a better year than Donaldson as a batter is a better fielder than Donaldson too. But Donaldson's team won 93 games and was 1st in their division. The Angles won 85 and were third.

So is it fair for us to say that Donaldson's teammates had better years, to make his numbers look better as well? Like I said, very, very difficult to evaluate baseball players individually, because many stats can be related to your teammates success or failure.

Smoak barely hit above his career average. Russell Martin hit below his average. Gloins hit 0.026 better than his career average. Jose Reyes hit 0.004 below his career average. All 4 hit in front of Donaldson for most of the year.

It's save to say their pitching got better, given their team ERA went from 22nd in 2014 to 12th in 2015, which, along with their great offense (top 5 in 2014 and 2015), lead them to a better record and finish in their division.